NEW BRUNSWICK. 119 
channel entirely with nets, striving by one grand hanl to 
destroy the supply forever. To this general rule Wilson 
is the only exception, and may be relied on, not only to 
do whatever in reason is required of him, but to do it at 
a moderate price. His only extravagant charge is for 
driving to Fredericton to meet his guests. 
The guides were waiting for us, and after making the 
requisite preparations and passing a comfortable night 
in tlie old log house, we started next day on our journey 
toward the head-waters of the Miramichi. Our canoes 
were made of the log of a tree, and familiarly called 
dug-outs, and were admirably adapted to the purpose. 
Being extremely long, sometimes thirty feet, and nar- 
row, they offer every convenience for poling, draw 
but little water, and are not injured by contact with a 
rock, that would pierce the thin bark of the delicate 
birch canoe, and will hold their way better against a 
strong rapid. Tliey are made of the trunk of some tow- 
ering branchless pine-tree that the adventurous woods- 
man has marked during the winter for his own, and 
which, after being cut down, is transported to a conve- 
nient place, where it is hewn into the shape of the outside 
of the boat. Augur holes are bored in the bottom, and 
pegs, two inches long, are driven, to answer for guides as 
to thickness. The inside is then roughly hewn away, 
till the pegs are reached, when it is siiioothed off, being 
left two inches thick at the bottom, and a half inch at the 
gunwale. Slender knees are introduced at proper dis- 
tances to prevent its warping under the sun ; a brace is 
fastened across from gunwale to gunwale, near the stem 
and stern, and the boat is complete. It is worth about 
